Electrical connectors are mounted on printed circuit boards in a wide variety of applications. In some instances, an electrical connector simply is mounted to a surface of the printed circuit board, and the connector includes a plurality of terminals having tail portions for connection, as by soldering, to appropriate circuit traces on the board. In other applications, the electrical connector not only is mounted to a surface on one side of the circuit board, but the connector mates through the board with a second connector on an opposite side of the board. Typically, with such “through mating” connector assemblies, a “blind” mating situation occurs because a user or operator can neither see nor feel one of the connectors on a side of the circuit board opposite the location of the user. In such blind mating assemblies, one of the connectors typically has a guide post insertable into a guide hole in the other connector for guiding the connectors into mating alignment to facilitate the blind mating process.
Various problems occur in designing blind-mating, through-board connector assemblies as described above. One problem concerns the length of the guide posts which typically are on the blind mating connector. It is highly desirable to reduce the length of the guide posts as much as possible to prevent stubbing, breakage or the like. In addition, the guide posts often extend completely through the printed circuit board and beyond a rear side of the board-mounted connector on the opposite side of the board. Conserving space behind the connector for other electronic components is critical in some miniaturized situations and, again, reducing the length of the guide posts is not only desirable but quite important. The present invention is directed to solving these various problems.